


Mma Ramotswe and the Big Bad Bakery Bamboozle

by 2014



Category: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - All Media Types
Genre: Africa, Baking, Gen, Get a real job, Mysterious phone calls, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 00:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2014/pseuds/2014
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this for school (we had to write fan fiction for some reason??). I wrote it all in one night, so the ending is kinda rushed. I got 91% on it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for school (we had to write fan fiction for some reason??). I wrote it all in one night, so the ending is kinda rushed. I got 91% on it.

Mma Ramotswe drove her rusty, trusty white van on the dusty, bumpy road towards Katlego’s old bakery in the middle of town. The wind blew through her spongy hair as she imagined the unimaginable baked-goodness that soon awaited her famished face. She readied her Katlego’s Bakery gift certificate as she waited impatiently at a train crossing. The smell of fresh bread was almost too overwhelming and she almost collapsed as she walked through the front door.

“Mma!” the famous old Botswana baker Katlego smiled, “what will it be?”

“I’d like one of your most famous loaves,” Mma Ramotswe salivatiously responded, dropping her crumbled coupon on the cashier counter.

It was mere seconds before Katlego returned with a freshly baked loaf, the sweet sustenance still simmering with stove-scented steam. Mma Ramotswe stared hungrily, frozen in place with ice cold, sticky beads of sweat sliding down the sides of her fixed facial features. Everything moved in slow motion: the faint clomps of Katlego moving towards her craving customer. Ramotswe’s practically oozing face lurching, grasping for culinary relief.

The bakery phone rang: “Hello, this is Katlego’s Bakery, Katlego speaking.” Mma Ramotswe’s fatigued feet gave up.

“This is… Sneaky Jake,” the mysterious voice on the other end announced, “I have a question for... Katlego.”

Katlego rolled her eyes, “this is her.”

“Is your… refrigerator running?”

Katlego almost dropped the phone. She looked around the room, heart thumping, starting to panic. Mma Ramotswe wanted to get up off the floor and check the fridge, but her body wouldn’t let her.

“I-I don’t know…” Katlego finally responded in a whisper.

“Well you better go catch it!”

Everyone in the room felt a weight drop on their shoulders. They had been outsmarted, they had been defeated. Mma Ramotswe stumbled back onto the cold tile. Katlego reluctantly hung up the telephone and slunk back to the front desk.

Mma Ramotswe tried to comfort her, “what was that about?”

Katlego began her tiring tale: “It began two weeks ago. I was managing the bakery just like any other day. Suddenly the phone rang. I didn’t think much of it at the time, as that’s what one would expect a phone to do, but looking back on it, it was rather sinister ring.

“I answered the phone and heard the sneaky, slithering voice now know to me as Sneaky Jake. He told me there was a big family curse on my here bakery, and I would have to give it up, if I wanted to or not.

“And ever since that fateful day, all sorts of unexplainable phenomenons have occurred: unexpected phone calls, mysterious noises, and most notably the possible lack of fluffiness of recent loaves.”

“Sneaky Jake is messing with your loaves?” Mma Ramotswe rhetorically asked with a new fiery passion for justice, “Mma Ramotswe, lady detective on the case!”

“So you’ll do it?” Katlego rhetorically replied, “that’s great! If you solve the case, I’ll let you have free, famous bread for a whole year!”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Mma Ramotswe arrived at Zebra Drive late at night, full of bread and thought. Mma Makutsi was peacefully snoozing at her typewriter, occasionally pressing some keys and mumbling something about trains or zebras. Ramotswe slowly crept into her detective office, trying not to wake her loyal secretary.

She sat for several hours thinking about how she was going to crack the case. ‘The stakes were high, the bets were low!’ thought Mma Ramotswe, not realizing it didn’t make any sense. What could the motivation be for someone like Sneaky Jake? Who could have anything against a sweet old lady like Katlego? Who doesn’t adore bread? She slowly started to drift asleep.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Mma Ramotswe started her big white van and drove to J.L.B. Matekoni’s marvelous mechanic shop, Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, early in the morning. It was a beautiful Botswana day, and the song birds were gracefully chirping away, unaware of the grey cloud over Ramotswe’s happy heart. She sighed and wondered how the elegance of nature could coexist with the unscrupulous complexion of humanity.

“Good morning, Mma!” J.L.B. Matekoni slid out from under an obviously irreplaceable ‘56 Ford Camaro, “what’s good?”

Mma Ramotswe furrowed her eyebrows, “I’m working on my most imperative case yet. The stakes are high, the bets are low!” She was glad to have thought of something clever to say beforehand.

She explained the tiring tale to J.L.B. Matekoni over a brunch of bread, butter, and Botswana berry jam. He nodded intently in between bites of biscuit. He wondered how some people could ruin the simple elegance of bread by spreading something like berry jam on it.

“So that’s where you come in,” Mma Ramotswe said as she unfolded a technical blueprint diagram from her in-fashion leather handbag.


	4. Chapter 4

“Stop pushing!” Ramotswe said as she dug her finger into Matekoni’s arm.

“What’s your problem?” he harshly whispered back.

She intensely shushed him, then looked outside of the bush in which they were hiding in. The sky was pitch black in the dead of night, complete silence aside from the howls of far off wolves and J.L.B Matekoni’s steady, heavy breathing. She stuck her head back into the bush.

“Why are we doing this?” Matekoni whispered, wishing he had paid more attention during the mission briefing.

“Wait!” she whisper-screamed, spraying saliva at her sleuth secondary.

The phone rang inside the bakery. “Go!” Ramotswe commanded, tossing Matekoni up through the bakery window and rolling away. J.L.B. pressed the record button on his Digital Voice Recorder® and held it up to the phone.

“Hello, this is Katlego’s Bakery, Katlego speaking” Katlego said, winking several times at Matekoni. He looked towards the window to see Mma Ramotswe struggling to climb up.

“Just go through the front door!” he naïvely suggested, immediately retracting his statement after receiving a sharp look.

“Hi, I was wondering what times the bakery is open on Thursdays,” the voice on the telephone inquired. It was definitely not the chill, distinct voice of Sneaky Jake.

“I uh, uh...” Katlego attempted to respond. This was the only call she had ever received in the forty-six years of her bakery besides, of course, Sneaky Jake.

Mma Ramotswe finally stumbled into the room, declaring “There’s no time for this,” slapping the phone out of Katlego’s wrinkled, famous hands. J.L.B. backed away awkwardly, not knowing whether to continue recording the phone or not.

The phone rang again. Matekoni slowly picked it up, handing it to Katlego. “Hello, this is Katlego’s Bakery, Katlego speaking.”

“This is…” Everyone in the room tensed up.

“Sneaky Jake…”

J.L.B. Matekoni and Katlego let out a harmonious exhale, and Mma Ramotswe snatched the phone, “Listen here you little cauliflower, what exactly do you have against a sweet, old baker like Katlego?!” As little J.L.B. Matekoni knew about the plan, he was pretty sure this was not a part of it.

The other line was silent except for the sound of a passing train. We’ve got him right where we want him, thought Mma Ramotswe, impeccable detective.

“I have… one question for you,” Sneaky Jake purred, “what time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?”

Katlego, Mma Ramotswe, and J.L.B. Matekoni looked at each other, shrugging their shoulders and scratching their chins.

“Time to get a new fence!”

Mma Ramotswe threw the phone out the window. The cord snapped back around and the phone knocked her onto the ground. She could hear the cruel cackles of Sneaky Jake emanating from the receiver laying by her head.


	5. Chapter 5

The ‘tective team met up at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors for an all-day brainstorming session. They were ready to spend hours silently pacing around almost having brilliant ideas, but J.L.B. Matekoni put an end to it quickly.

They gathered around the brunch table and reviewed their evidence. Mma Ramotswe stood on one of Katlego’s famous, vintage chairs, “As a professional detective, I know the most important clues are the ones hidden deep within. As the saying goes, ‘sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.’” Katlego and J.L.B. Matekoni returned blank looks.

“The most substantial clue we’ve acquired is the telephone recording of Sneaky Jake’s shuddersome speech, recorded by J.L.B. Matekoni at Katlego’s Bakery on April 9th at 10:39 PM. Even though we only have a thirty second voice recording, I, as a professional detective, know we can find this Sneaky Jake. As the saying goes, ‘there’s always a way.’”

Mma Ramotswe stared at her audience, waiting for some sort of applause. Katlego gave her a thumbs up and a reassuring smile. She got down from the chair.

“So let’s hear it,” Katlego suggested as she pushed the record button.

“No!” Mma Ramotswe and J.L.B. Matekoni said at the same time, both pushing the stop button as soon as possible.

“Oh dear, that must be the wrong button,” Katlego woefully sighed.

Mma Ramotswe pressed the play button to see how much wasn’t overwritten. The sound of a train passing played.

“I’ve got it!” J.L.B. Matekoni exclaimed.


	6. Chapter 6

Mma Ramotswe drove over to the train station while J.L.B. Matekoni gave Katlego a lesson on audio equipment. Mma’s spongy hair once again blew in the mid-morning Botswana air. She took a hard right and parked right next to the train station.

She knocked hard on the ticket window, waking up an obviously uninterested employee. She explained to him the entire tiring tale. He nodded intently in between rubbing his stubble quizzically. He wondered why she thought he would care so much.

“So, my real question is where was the location of a train at 10:39 PM yesterday?”

The ticket windowman giddily snapped to attention, standing up straight. “Well why didn’t you say so?” Math was his true passion, he was saving up money to go to the famous Botswana College of Fine Maths.

He got out a piece of scratch paper and a mechanical pencil and got to work. He scribbled hundreds of calculations and hypotheses at a blinding rate, leaving Ramotswe’s comprehension in the dust.

“Aha!” he proudly exclaimed, “I’ve got it!” He gave her the address on his last piece of scratch paper. She thanked him and he waved, “come back any time!”


	7. Chapter 7

As Mma Ramotswe was driving back to tell the others the exciting news, she made a sudden change of plans. Looking at the scribbled address, she turned onto Ominous Drive, one of the most ominous parts of town. She could see broken down houses, abandoned laundromats, and unkempt lawns. A shiver ran down her spine. Only a real sneaky dude would live here, she mumbled to herself, driving slowly.

To her surprise, the address wasn’t on Ominous Drive, but the next street over, Great Street. She pulled up to a brightly painted house and well kept lawn. Mma looked down at the written address and back at the house to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. She unrolled the window and looked out, and sure enough there were train tracks.

Mma Ramotswe got out of her van and walked towards the house. What kind of Sneaky Jake has tulips on their front lawn?

She rang the doorbell and was greeted by a nice middle-aged couple, “hello!”

Mma Ramotswe just stood there, frozen. She had no idea how to react or what to do. “Uhh…” she tried, regaining composure, “is there a, uh, Jake here? Does anyone go by Sneaky perchance?”

The couple chuckled, “you must be talking about our son Jake! We’ll show you to where he is.” Mma Ramotswe followed them into their spacious, sparkling house.

She spied someone dusting a vintage couch, “Ticket Windowman?”

He turned around. Puzzled, he raised a single eyebrow, “who?”

“You know…” she started to say.

He raised the other, “oh! You must mean my brother. He works at the train station--”

The couple gave him a sharp look and gestured for her to follow them into the backyard. There was a large, dusty grey shack next to a certainly clean pool.

The couple knocked on the aging wooden door, “there’s someone here to see you!” The door slowly crept open, making an unbearable creak; and letting out an unbearable stench. Ramotswe’s heart was pumping, adrenaline was pumping, her lungs were pumping. She was pumped.

She took just one look at the face of Sneaky Jake and was out cold.


	8. Chapter 8

“Ppbfffgdfssdfg!!” Mma Ramotswe sputtered as J.L.B. Matekoni woke her with a bucket of ice cold water. “What happened?” she asked, still adaze.

J.L.B. Matekoni, looking rather annoyed, began the tiring tale: “Apparently, there’s a kid named Jake who has been prank calling various businesses he found on a list of phone numbers ‘least called but still in the phone book.’ He just goes by Sneaky Jake because he thinks it sounds cool, not because he’s sneaky.

“Why did you decide to stop the prank calls by finding the caller in person when you could have just blocked the number?”

Mma Ramotswe had no answer. She had not been the Agatha Christie mystery detective she thought she could be. “You’re right J.L.B., maybe I just don’t have what it takes to be a detective anymore. Maybe I’m losing my edge.”

Mma Ramotswe and J.L.B. Matekoni had a long discussion and she decided it was time to hang up the detective smock and get back to pursuing her other lifelong dream: extreme sports.

 

To be continued in Mma Ramotswe and the Mystery of the Sneaky Ski Stealer

 


End file.
